A Review!

Class Date: May 27th

Location: Your couch! See your weekly e-mail for Zoom link!

The end (of the semester) is near! It’s been a wonderful semester, so let’s take a short stroll down memory lane! Remember, questions this week come from class and the readings! 

• The Sioux People

The Sioux people at one time spanned much of the central Mississippi Valley, often divided into the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota groups.  Though each group lived different lifestyles, depending on the land, all were caught up in the aggressive colonial expansion of the American government, often with deadly results. Though remembered often for ‘Custer’s Last Stand’ or the Battle of Little Bighorn, their resistance to reservations for decades stands testament to their way of life. They still persist today, passing down knowledge and culture on their reservation land.

• Salem Witch Trials

The inspiration for plays, studies, and a whole host of cultural references, we learned about what led up the Salem witch trials and what happened in that little town that left many people dead and a community changed. Rather than simple religious fervor, town politics, gender roles, and teenage frustrations all collided in an episode that led to many deaths and a changed community. 

• Martha Ballard

Normally, Martha’s life and story would have been lost to history, as she was a midwife living in a somewhat remote Maine settlement in the American colonies. But, for 30 years of her life, Martha Ballard recorded her days, the weather, and the comings and goings of her family, giving us a wealth of information about women’s lives, the practice of midwifing, and family dynamics. 

• Dolley Madison

One of our fabulous first ladies, widely considered to be the ‘first’ First Lady, as she set a lot of the standards and protocols that generations of First Ladies would follow. Though the term wasn’t actually used at the time, Dolley established herself as an imposing figure for future first ladies to follow. She was politically brilliant, serving as hostess for the Jefferson White House, as well as presiding over the social scene in Washington for both her husband’s terms in office. 

• Monroe Doctrine 

This was a big one! We briefly touched on the general history of the Americas, as the Spanish and Portuguese established colonial footholds in the Americas. President James Monroe (the last of the ‘founding fathers’ to serve as president), attempted to warn Europe in an address to Congress to stay out of the hemisphere and avoid any more colonization or interference with independent nations. However, the Doctrine would be called upon by various presidents over the decades, with decidedly mixed results for the region.

• Reconstruction

We took a look at the aftermath of the Civil War, which has proven to have deep and lasting consequences. After the rebellious states were brought back into the fold, many disagreed with how to reintegrate a war torn region full of those who despised the government once again in charge. We looked at the various plans and how loose enforcement gave rise to a number of hate groups like the KKK and the ways in which laws enforced a new sort of de facto slavery in sharecropping and jailing.

• Ida Tarbell

A pioneer in investigative journalism, Ida took on corporations and monopolies in the press in the Progressive era. Considered to be one of the primary ‘muckrakers’, she sought to uncover the truth of the harm monopolies could cause in society. Her work ‘The History of Standard Oil’ is  credited with prompting an investigation into its monopoly and the subsequent ‘trust busting’ era. 

• PORTS - Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area

Tara to the rescue! While I was deliberating in the jury room, Tara took you on a PORTS adventure to talk about the site that used to be a Carnegie brick factory! This was a great continuation of our focus on robber barons and a fun look at one of our lesser known parts of the State Park system!

• Eugenics Program

Though this was a bit depressing, it was an important look at a pervasive movement in American medicine and politics. The belief that better, healthier, smarter children should be encouraged seems like a good idea. But when it was taken to its ‘logical’ end, its adherents believed that all ‘non desirable’ people should be kept from having children at all. This belief led to the forced, and sometimes secret, sterilization of thousands of people, mostly women, for decades. The American eugenics movement and laws focused on preventing undesirable births

• Leo Frank

One of the early ‘true crime’ mysteries of America, how did ‘little Mary Phagan’ die? Though evidence collection was shoddy at best (Frances Glessner Lee would have been aghast), rising prejudices and anti-Jewish sentiment certainly contributed to the accusation and conviction of factory manager Leo Frank. Though new admissions and eye witness statements were revealed decades later, Leo Frank was still executed for the murder of the young factory worker, leaving a legacy of doubt in the efficacy of the justice system when prejudice is involved. 

• The Radium Girls

Soon after radium was discovered, it became all the rage to coat things in radium to make them glow in the dark. It was especially popular on watches - and young girls were hired to paint the tiny numbers. Encouraged to ‘lip dip’ the brushes in their mouths, many women suffered horrible fates and early deaths as a result of the negligence and lies perpetuated by the companies who manufactured radium painted watch faces. 

• Lemon Grove Incident 

Though it didn’t set national precedent because it stopped at the county courts, the Lemon Grove incident was the first time segregation was successfully stopped by the courts. Though the Mexican and Mexican-American children had been attending school with their white neighbors, the school board and white PTA parents decided to hastily construct another school to separate the children. Mexican parents fought back, boycotting the school and taking them to court. 

• Frances Glessner Lee

Such an unlikely place to start forensic science! Frances was born into wealth and privilege and eventually used it to encourage the development of medical examiners and crime scene forensics. Her nutshell murder doll houses helped to train police and medical examiners across the country. In fact, they are still being used to illustrate scenes of unexpected and unexplained deaths to this day!  

• Jonas Salk

It was a race to discover not only the cause and pathway of polio, but a way to prevent children from becoming sick, paralyzed, and dying from the epidemics that raged across cities every summer. We took a look at the rise of polio and the efforts to find a vaccine to prevent it. Though Salk was the first to the front with his killed virus vaccine, bad lab practices contaminated a batch and damaged trust in the vaccine. Dr. Sabin created a live virus vaccine, administered with a sugar cube, to also combat the virus. Together, these vaccines helped to almost completely eradicate polio and we’re still working to cross the finish line!

• Dr. Eugenie Clark

What a fun ending to our semester! This self-proclaimed ‘shark lady’ was a marine pioneer, learning to dive on early pre-scuba apparatus, and studying sharks and other fish around the world. Her work in the Red Sea even helped part of it become a protected waterway as Egypt’s first National Park. Though her personal life was a bit of a mystery, she made invaluable contributions to marine science and did much to dispel the myth of the ferocious, mindless, shark. 

I hope the review has helped! Remember, you can always visit www.rediscoverushistory.com to review the readings. 

If you do not want to fill out the form, you are welcome to e-mail your feedback to me at malbrant@sdccd.edu. 

Thank you all so much for a wonderful semester. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you for letting me do what I love! You all make this so much fun and I’m always grateful. Never hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or need more information about classes!